by AZ Kelvin
“Huh, stellar, thanks. Are they hard to make?” He checked the small strip out.
“No, not really.”
“Can they be set to different frequencies?”
“Ah, yeah, by changing the length of the tin aerial. Why?”
“Then we could assign a different frequency to each crew member and know who’s where.”
“Ugh, I should’ve thought of that. That’s brilliant.” She shook her head and kissed him soundly. “I knew there was a reason why I keep you around.” She took the strip back from him and headed for the door.
“Well, hey, where you goin’ with it?”
“Gotta change these now,” Katy called back to him, “See ya for dinner.”
CJ sat in the crew’s mess and stared at the closed door while abstract thoughts floated through his mind. He pulled himself back to reality and went to his quarters to add to the captain’s log. The entries were short and he finished them in little time. He opened the file from Fulson and studied the information again. He liked Cat’s idea about which side of the lamppost the Starfire flower was on, and how it related to which direction to go on the device from the golden star. Boss’ idea about it being a puzzle box makes sense, too, he thought as he looked over the image of the device. Eleven squares up and eleven squares over. Eleven verses in the second riddle. Which all fits. He read through the first riddle again:
“Some are stiff and stout, and like to swivel about…
Some are made of words, with nouns and verbs…
Some others must be seen, in order to be gleaned…
Think hard and do your best…
There’s only one chance to make your guess…
To retrieve the living treasure from inside this chest…
Start your quest at the golden star…
And let the Starfire guide where you are.”
“To retrieve the living treasure…” he said out loud to himself. “By the Stars, I hope it’s not a Kang!”
“GABI?” he called into the comms unit.
“Yes, Captain?”
“Are you busy?”
“Not terribly. What can I do for you?”
“Can part of you join me in my quarters, please?”
“Certainly, Captain.” She shimmered in with her Ops uniform on before she was even done with the answer.
“I want you to run a projection for me, GABI. Assume this device is a puzzle box and incorporate the two riddles. You know our hypothesis, please evaluate.”
“All variables have been considered, Captain. There is a possibility that you may have overlooked. The numbers from the second puzzle—you assume the first row of the riddle corresponds to the first row of the puzzle box when there is no evidence to indicate such.”
“So, you’re saying that the sequence may have been jumbled around on purpose?”
“It is a possibility, given this person’s extravagant efforts up to this point, which would mean there is yet another key required to solve the riddle.”
“Have you gone over all of the information in the file?”
“Yes, thoroughly, and I have found no other key. But again, are we certain that we even have all the information necessary to begin with?”
“Meaning?”
“I do not believe all of this was engineered as a means to remember where something has been hidden away. It is more likely a trail meant for someone else to follow.”
“Yes, I agree, it says, ‘retrieve the living treasure’ right here.”
“Yes, but, from over one hundred years ago.”
“Right, which means either it’s been found already, or it’s probably no longer among the living,” CJ conceded. “What kind of living thing would you hide? People?”
“Prized animals perhaps, or rare plants, possibly even viruses.”
“Viruses?” He hadn’t thought of anything that creepy. His imagination flared with possibilities, “Aliens—alien viruses—Human-Kang hybrid viruses!”
GABI just raised an eyebrow.
CJ smiled. “Okay, maybe not. How’s the ship? Any problems with the new systems?”
“Negative, Captain, we’re setting new standards of operation every day,” she said wryly, in reference to being out of dry dock for only a few days.
“Oh, ha, ha, funny. Paging Commander Smartass, report to Helen Waite.” CJ joked back with her and they shared a laugh. “Now get outta here.”
“Aye, Captain.” She shimmered away with a nod.
CJ leaned his head back and thought on what GABI had said about unconsidered possibilities. He wondered how many other possibilities could be hiding in the shadows of the unknown. He tried to focus, but his eyelids were so heavy.
The crew’s mess turned into the rooftop of a building in the middle of a large city. He had his grip gloves and his parkour shoes on. The day was bright and sunny. He raced along the tops of the buildings. He vaulted over the gaps between the buildings and rolled out his landings. His cardio was excellent and his timing was perfect. He cartwheeled over ventilation equipment and ‘hopscotched’ his way through the power relays. He ran as fast as he could; he had to build up enough momentum to clear the biggest gap yet. He stuck the launch perfectly and sailed off the edge of the building.
“Seedge—CJ!” Katy’s face smiled at him, as she shook him awake.
“What—aww, now I’ll never know if I made it,” CJ said with a sigh.
“Come on, just enough time to get cleaned up and meet the others for dinner,” she said, as she stripped for the shower.
“Mmm,” CJ suggested.
“Food first,” she answered. “Come on, up, up, up, up.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He dragged himself along to follow.
Pene did a great job with the meal; she found some protein recipes the last cook left behind mixed in with some of the galley equipment. The food reminded Boss, Gina, and Cat of earlier days with a different crew, so tales were told of times gone by and the evening hours grew long.
*~*~*
Chapter Twenty-Six
CJ was up early the next morning, well ahead of the alarm; his stomach let him know the butterflies were up early, too. He slipped on a moisture-control layer under the new body armor and gave the outfit an overall flexibility test. Not bad, he thought to himself as he shadow sparred around the room. He threw on some flight pants and fastened a hide-away harness over the body armor. The two batons were stashed along the bottom of his back, and an assault blade was strapped between his shoulder blades. As long as nobody shoots my boots, he joked to himself as he put on his favorite parkour racing boots. He buckled on his K-13 holster and checked for a full power cell, as well as a backup. He stuck the gun into its holster at his side and slipped on his action jacket. He was ready to go.
Katy lay awake and watched CJ don his gear. She was quiet. He knew she had mixed feelings about the mission and he didn’t want to tip the balance. She suited up for another day of engineering before she and CJ went to the mess for coffee.
Discussions were quick and short; the crew was eager to get back into some action after what seemed like an eternity away from the Altered Moon. The ‘hurry up and wait’ part of any covert action was always the toughest part to take. Everyone was in position and tried to stay focused while they waited for the Kang patrol to go by before they moved in.
Radio silence was easy to maintain when the datpads provided a private message capability within one’s own group. Boss pushed a ‘get ready’ notification to CJ’s datpad and a moment later, the main power came on and GABI jumped the ship to Century Four. They stayed long enough to launch Moonshadow and jumped back outside the system to wait.
Gina flew the shuttle into the thick and cloudy atmosphere at the steepest angle she could to make the entry as quick as possible while not burning up. Moisture from the clouds began to stream down the sides of the shuttle and visual dropped to zero.
“Switching to instrument navigation.” A heads-up display became visible showing various fligh
t status read-outs. Strong thermal zones battled with the constant western winds, which gave life to constant rain and thunderstorms that moved intermittently across the globe. Moonshadow dropped out of the cloud layer in a downpour and closed in on the coordinates below. The endless canopy of the massive planetary rain forest stubbornly refused them even a tiny spot to fly into, let alone land anywhere.
“Fly a spiral pattern outward from here,” CJ said, as they flew over nothing but treetops. “I don’t see any structures at all on the sensors and I can’t see shit out the window.”
“Look there.” Cal pointed to a large dark area in the green canopy. “What’s that?”
Gina steered the shuttle over the dark area and slowly began to descend into the oblong opening in the canopy. The floodlights slid down tree trunks that were bigger in diameter than Moonshadow was wide.
“Wow, look at that,” CJ said.
A massive tree lay at an angle against several other trees, which had been pushed aside when the ‘tree-hemoth’ finally succumbed to the weight of the ages.
The canopy above them bore the brunt of the downpour and directed the rain down along the branches and trunks of the trees, cutting off a majority of the light, when there was any. The mid-level plant life grew in leafy masses suspended on vines wherever the light did shine through the leafy canopy. The tree limbs were thick with strong vines and ivies twisting in and around them interlocking the masses to the surrounding tree limbs. Avian and winged reptilian creatures flew and glided as fast as they could to flee from noisy intrusion of their home by the shuttle’s entry.
The hanging plant masses eventually gave way to huge shelves of fungi and everywhere they could see blooms of bioluminescent mushrooms. A thick mist hung below them; it pooled around the massive tree trunks as far as the lights could reach. CJ outlined three paths through the trees with the sensors wide enough for them to fly through all the way to their destination. Gina steered Moonshadow carefully through the forest of ancient trees toward the waypoint on the nav screen.
“This is about as far as we go,” Gina said, as they reached an area where the roots grew into a twisted maze.
“Can you set it down anywhere?” CJ asked her.
“Ehh, maybe over here.” Gina slipped Moonshadow around to set her down across two big roots growing into each other. The length of the root ledge wasn’t quite big enough as Moonshadow’s front landing strut slipped off the edge, which sent the shuttle forward unexpectedly. Gina gunned the thrusters and stabilized their flight immediately. “Sorry, boys. Let’s try that again.” She angled the shuttle until she could set all three struts down securely.
“Our objective is about two hundred meters south-southwest of our position,” CJ said. “Full headgear and bio filters, and here—stick these somewhere.” He handed them each one of the beacon strips Katy made.
“What’s this?” Cal asked.
“Homemade no-power locator strips from Katy. Just stick ’em somewhere inconspicuous. “Cal, grab the ascent gear just in case.”
“You got it, Cap.”
“That Katy never stops thinkin’, does she?” Gina said as she looked over the locator strip.
“Yep, she’s one of a kind,” CJ said back, with a smile.
The path through the rooted maze proved to be a difficult and exhausting hike. The building-sized roots of the ancient trees twisted and collided in their lifelong quest to grab what land mass existed farther below them. CJ, Gina, and Cal had to scale up tall sides and traverse root bridges high over mist-filled voids. The moisture gathered on everything; it soaked their gear and fogged the faceplates of their respirator masks. Every surface they encountered was slick from the wetness, most of it covered with a slimy moss. The heavier gravity made things just that much harder. The stifling heat and humidity could be felt right through their clothing. CJ regretted putting the body armor on now; all he wanted to do was strip everything off in an effort to cool down. The temperature indicator on his datpad read forty-seven degrees Celsius with a humidity of one hundred percent.
The two-hundred-meter trip took over two hours to complete due to the difficult terrain. The waypoint and the personnel indicators merged on the map. There was nothing but more of the same all around them. CJ panned his light around; it was dark and a waist-deep mist shrouded everything.
“Ah huh—figures,” CJ sighed. “Okay, so it’s not going to be handed to us on a silver platter. Start sensor sweeps. See what shows up.” CJ ran sweeps in his direction while Gina and Cal went off in other directions.
“Captain, over here.” Gina’s voice came through the headset.
CJ and Cal met up with her a short ways off. They could barely make out the tail fin of a spacecraft under the root structure. The heavy and powerful roots had crushed and consumed the ship, as they had grown out over the last century.
CJ ran a scan of what showed through the roots. “Not enough to tell what kind of ship she was, but the alloy signature is Arzian. Carbon analysis reads only a hundred fifty years, though. That doesn’t quite match our timeline, but I think we found the spot.”
“How are we supposed to get in there?” Cal looked over the massive knot of roots.
“This may not be everything,” CJ said. “Might just be the shuttle pad. We need to look around more.” He eyed as much of the area as he could, just when the canopy far above them began to brighten and then glowed with the green of leaves in full sunshine.
“The storm must have passed,” Cal said.
“Doesn’t help us a bit down here,” Gina pointed out.
“Makes it darker by contrast, actually,” CJ added. “That area doesn’t look as thick. Let’s check over there.”
CJ’s hunch paid off when they found the overgrown entry of a habitat. The old-style pressurized entryway was crushed by the roots and the top of the hatch had been torn from its anchor point. CJ’s heartbeat began to race a little in anticipation. The overgrown condition of the find told them no one had been here in a very long time. Animal prints of some kind led to the opening at the top of the hatch.
“Cal, can you cut away that bottom anchor point?” CJ asked.
“Aye, Cap,” Cal said as he pulled a miniature power cell out of his pack and attached a torch head to it. He flipped up the small view screen and began to cut through the anchor point. “We’ll have to cut the lock bolts, too.”
CJ and Gina watched the hundreds of strange creatures roaming around the area scurry about, while Cal worked on the hatch. Some ran up to see what was going on, while others bolted from the invading aliens. Cal finished up and all three of them pried the hatch open. The bottom of the hatch was beneath the mist layer, and the torn area was above the mist. The surrounding mist poured eagerly into the new opening until it was even with the mist outside of the habitat.
A room shaped like a half circle was big enough to have ten bunks attached to the walls, seven of which were still folded and stowed. A table sat just outside a galley with an old-style comms system along the back wall next to the only door other than the entryway. The three of them spread out into the room; CJ ran a scan on the door.
“Hey, I got a dead guy over here,” Gina said over the headset.
“Well don’t shoot him!” Cal said with a laugh.
“I tell ya, you shoot one dead guy and you’re labeled for life,” Gina groaned with sarcastic indignation.
A chaotic and unexpected flurry of movement caught them all by surprise, as a long-clawed, half-reptile-half-grasshopper-looking creature shot out from where it had been hiding and launched itself out the door to disappear in a swirl of mist.
“Whoa—shit!” Cal ducked out of the way, as the creature raced past him.
“Let’s hope there isn’t anything else in here,” CJ said, to which Gina heartily agreed.
“There’s not much left of him.” CJ turned back to the corpse. “Time, moisture, and animals have all taken their toll on this guy, not to mention he was shot.”
“Shot?”
Cal asked.
“Yup.” CJ wiggled the skull at Cal to show off the bullet hole over the left eye socket.
“Look here.” Gina held her light close to the floor under the mist layer. Even after all this time, the dark swath of a bloodstain could still be seen on the floor. The swath ended where bloody footprints began before they disappeared under the closed inner door. “Looks like this guy managed to fight back before he died.”
“And that’s a lot of blood,” Cal said. “Whoever that second guy was, he was badly injured, and take a look at this.” Cal lifted a corroded old handgun off the floor.
CJ looked the gun over and recognized the design immediately. “Blood Stars. So, are they the aggressors, or are they the defenders? We need to get this door open.” CJ looked around the perimeter of the door and found a bloodstained panel. “Here’s an ID panel with a bloody handprint on it.”
“Doesn’t do us much good with no power,” Gina said.
“We could try cutting it,” Cal suggested.
“If we have to, but let me have that mini power cell you used for the torch first.” CJ pushed the top right and bottom left corners of the ID panel to unlock the maintenance latch. He pushed the panel to the side manually to expose the inner workings of the ID lock, where he disconnected two power lines and crossed four others. He took the power cell from Cal and hooked it into the improvised circuit. The door slid away to reveal a long set of stairs that descended into the darkness.
“Ta da!” CJ said.
The eeriness was compounded by the mist, which slowly crept its way down the stairs ahead of them.
“Gee, what I always wanted a dark and creepy stairw—Hey! Cut it out.” Cal grabbed the doorjamb when Gina gave him a playful push from behind.
The mist flowed down the stairs and swirled around their legs as they descended into the unknown darkness below. CJ’s light lit up the bottom of the stairs and a short hallway beyond.